Small Observations General Thread (things not worth separate threads)

[AriochIV]

Each Age can add its own unit types, so helicopters might possibly be something quite different.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Choppers should be a 4th age Ranged unit (fitting with the antitank role) with Amphibious

No. it should be an evolution path of Attack Aircraft line.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I noticed that, in Rosencreutz's video, he opens up the Civilopedia page of Han, which shows the icon of the Shidafu UU:

View attachment 716029

FYI, this icon is based on the Black Gauze Cap 乌纱帽, a government official's hat that took this exact shape only in the Ming dynasty.

Spoiler A Ming painting showing three officials wearing the black cap :

View attachment 716031

It is also worth noting that the word Shidafu 士大夫 or "scholar-official" is not a Han dynasty vocabulary. The very concept of scholar-official only developed after the Civil Service Examination became prevalent, which only happened in the Song dynasty, and reached its peak in the Ming dynasty.

Then, in the Han Great Person list, among the many early Chinese scholars and officials, is Wang Yangming (1472-1529 CE), a famous Ming scholar-official known for his philosophical advancements. It is also worth noting that the ability of Wang Yangming is "Activated on an Army Commander to grant it a free Promotion"; historically, Wang Yangming was also an able commander who defeated a contender to the Ming throne. Therefore, this Wang Yangming design is undoubtedly based on the Ming official Wang Yangming, rather than some random Han official who was mistakenly named after a Ming person.



Initially, I thought Wang Yangming was a lone case of anachronism, as everyone else on the Great Person list roughly fits into the Early Imperial China period (ca. 221 BCE - 266 CE), while the wording of Shidafu might be simply an overlooked term.

However, the icon of Shidafu is undoubtedly based on the official cap from the Ming times. With that in mind, the Han Great Person list now has three instances of Ming elements, from naming to art design. And these are carefully designed Ming elements - both the icon design and the Wang Yangming design accurately reflect Ming customs and historical events, indicating that the designers involved as a good understanding of Ming history. But now, these assets have become part of the Han design.

In conclusion, I strongly suspect that the Han Unique Unit, "Shidafu," was initially designed as the Unique Unit for Ming. For reasons unknown, FXS devs eventually decided to shift these unique units to Han, which resulted in the current design. This change was done somewhat hurriedly, in that the name and the icon for these UU remained as a Ming name and a Ming icon, as well as an anachronistic Wang Yangming. The current UU also has a bunch of figures who were clearly not from the Han era (in fact, the majority of them were not from the Han era), suggesting poor research caused by a hurried design change.

---

I don't have any feelings about this design change personally - I would still happily play Han and Ming.

On the other hand, I would like to point out that the three cases of anachronism will be very, very visible to anyone who are relatively familiar with Chinese history, especially to Chinese players (who all learned about the Ming scholar Wang Yangming in their high school textbooks). It would be a very jarring playing experience for the Chinese player community when they see an accurately portrayed Ming figure showing up in the Han civ, and I can certainly imagine Chinese players complaining about how FXS handled it (if not already).

I would suggest that FXS devs at least do something about Wang Yangming, which should fix the most apparent issue (redesigning the icon and the rest of the Great Person would be too much work before release).

• Perhaps renaming Wang Yangming to Ban Chao, who was a scholar and an actual army commander in the Eastern Han dynasty, so only a rename is enough, and his ability won't require a redesign. In addition, he is also related to Ban Zhao (Chao is the big brother of Zhao), who is already a Great Person on the list, so the overall theme of early Chinese scholars and officials is still retained.

(In a perfect world, I might suggest redesigning the entire Han UU list from the ground up, as there were plenty of interesting figures in Han times - I am a historian focusing on early China, and my job is to deal with these interesting figures every day. Of course, this will be plenty of work, and I won't expect such a relatively large redesign on a released product to be realistically on the developing schedule.)

In any case, I hope that such a small rename could patch this issue of unthematic anachronism, and bring about a better playing experience.

Follow up: It seems that in the release version of Civ, the unique great person name "Wang Yangming" had been changed to Huo Qubing, a famous Han-era general. I appreciate that the devs reconsidered the anachronism and made the change!

 

[AriochIV]

Okay... the deal with units and the Age transition is actually clearer than I thought, and not entirely arbitrary.

At Age transition, you get to keep 6 units plus however many additional units can fit in your Commanders (normally 4 each in Antiquity). The rest disappear.

That seems relatively straightforward, and not too burdensome, as Commanders aren't that expensive.

(post won't accept image attachments at the moment)

https://well-of-souls.com/civ/images/7_age_unit_limit.jpg

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Anyone knows if I can get back my highly promoted Commander after it dies? I am playing Trung Trac of Rome and my Commander with 6 promotions died I built it once again and all I got was a brand new Commander with no promotion.

 

[SirViss]

Anyone knows if I can get back my highly promoted Commander after it dies? I am playing Trung Trac of Rome and my Commander with 6 promotions died I built it once again and all I got was a brand new Commander with no promotion.

You are suppose to get it back after a period of time. How long i don't know. About to start up the game for the 1st time.

 

[Wohlauf]

Snow isn't a tile anymore! It's a sort of tile feature. It exists on tundra tiles, disappearing over time or with the age transition. I only noticed it when I got to the exploration age and realized my tundra empire was without any of the snow that once existed.

I'm honestly not sure if snow has any effect or is just purely visual. Overall interesting change that I like.

 

[AriochIV]

Okay... the deal with units and the Age transition is actually clearer than I thought, and not entirely arbitrary.

At Age transition, you get to keep 6 units plus however many additional units can fit in your Commanders (normally 4 each in Antiquity). The rest disappear.

That seems relatively straightforward, and not too burdensome, as Commanders aren't that expensive.

(post won't accept image attachments at the moment)

https://well-of-souls.com/civ/images/7_age_unit_limit.jpg

A clarification here: I just went through Age transition and I only have 10 military units, despite having 4 Commanders. So it appears that you get to keep 6 units plus additional units that can fit in ONE Commander.

I also think I had more than 4 Commanders, but I can't go back and check because you lose access to autosaves from the previous Age. I know know if actually loading the units into the Commanders would have helped, because again, I can't go back and check.

edit: another correction: I do still have 5 Commanders. It's really hard to see the stacked units.

edit2: a second correction: more than one Commander does have some more units in them. The Commander interface is a bit buggy... sometimes it will show the Commander as being empty when it isn't. Somewhat frustrating.

So what I thought was simple isn't. Now I'm just confused.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Anyone has problems with the Science path in the exploration age?
It says "Place 4 Specialists in Urban districts outside of city centers", and I've placed god knows how many specialists but it just doesn't update. Yes, I did keep in mind that I have to place outside the city center.

 

[AriochIV]

This three-lateen-sail ship previously thought to be a modern scout embarked graphic is now the Corsair, a unit obtained from Militaristic city-states in the second Age. It captures defeated naval units.



The embarked graphic actually different.

 

[RedCourtJester]

This three-lateen-sail ship previously thought to be a modern scout embarked graphic is now the Corsair, a unit obtained from Militaristic city-states in the second Age. It captures defeated naval units.

View attachment 718357

Hng that is sexy.

 

[Jeppetto]

Right to Rule and Crossroad of the World have cosmetic Banner seemingly pointing to a Civ they contain - can we read out at least single Civ introduced in the one we don't have info about from it?

 

[Ryansinbela]

You mean Crossroads?

 

[Black Gate]

Right to Rule and Crossroad of the World have cosmetic Banner seemingly pointing to a Civ they contain - can we read out at least single Civ introduced in the one we don't have info about from it?

The Epic Games Store already leaked (through datamining) that Right to Rule, the one we don't have official information on, will have Assyria, Silla, Dai Viet, and Qajar.

 

[marius_kaparius]

I don't know if anyone has noted this but the Burning Arrows unit has an idle animation where these winged men perform a dance - incredible detail.

 

[AriochIV]

I have updated the Unit List on my site with all of the available data from the Civilopedia, at least for the military units.

Civilization VII Analyst: Units

well-of-souls.com

 

[Siptah]

The pestilence crisis in exploration is actually a real crisis that needs to be dealt with. Lost quite some units to that as I didn't react fast enough. Next time, I will rush buy some doctors in most cities asap.

 

[Jeppetto]

The Epic Games Store already leaked (through datamining) that Right to Rule, the one we don't have official information on, will have Assyria, Silla, Dai Viet, and Qajar.

Thanks. I assume it is Silla then that is portrayed there and Bulgaria on the other one.

 

[Siptah]

I think legacy path milestones should stay completed once achieved. It's really painful for the exploration age military legacy path when AIs constantly convert some of your distant land settlements and you loose 2 points for that.

Or is this just a UI thing and it counts as completed once you did it, despite the bar indicating something different?

 

[Krikkit1]

I think legacy path milestones should stay completed once achieved. It's really painful for the exploration age military legacy path when AIs constantly convert some of your distant land settlements and you loose 2 points for that.

Or is this just a UI thing and it counts as completed once you did it, despite the bar indicating something different?

I think it may look at the highest level you had at any one time. So if you hit a milestone, that can’t be taken away, but to hit the next milestone you have to make those points back up.